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WJ Pilot Bio
__TOC__ ='Personal History:'= 'Pre-Suitfall:' For all his life until Suitfall Ferdinand had been bedridden and sickly for weeks or months at a time. Constantly in and out of a variety of different doctor's offices for several different chronic illnesses as well as the more commonplace ills, which he still seemed to have more than his fair share of. In spite of this Ferdinand had always been a cheerful young man; ever the one with a bawdy joke or funny story for the nurses who came to prep him for uncomfortable tests. His doctors and family held him up to others as a kind of Hallmark-esque triumph of the human spirit; he was his family's Tiny Tim. As he was frequently bedridden, and tired easily even when he wasn’t, Ferdinand became more and more involved with computers and games; as such when, in 2015 a disaster in Washington state left most of Central and Eastern Washington as well as North Idaho without power, phone, or internet he was one of the handful of people in the area who had access to an internet connection when Suitfall occurred. When the pod crashed in his backyard and he read that display he activated it immediately. 'Post-Suitfall: On His Own' When Ferdinand woke three weeks later in an empty home in the middle of an empty suburb, he wasn’t struck by how ominously empty everything was, but by how good he felt. Recipients of hip transplants frequently say that they didn't realize how much pain they were in until they weren't in pain anymore; Ferdinand had this same type of experience, he was not tired and to him this sensation was a novel one, like taking a hit of cocaine for the first time except that it never wore off. The absence of his family, neighbors and friends, the fact that he didn’t know the date and none of the utilities were functioning were only superficially alarming, he was distracted by the pleasure and power of his new body and suit of armor. He would track down his family soon enough, there was no cause for alarm, after all even though he had no way to refill his medications he no longer needed them, or ready access to a doctor, or someone to make sure he didn’t linger in bed too long; he was free. More than free, he was powerful, superhuman even. Not only was he not tired most of the time, he wasn’t tired ever. ''He was never tired, or hungry, or thirsty but more awake and alive than he could ever remember being. He swore he would never curl up in a bed again for the rest of his life. This abrupt transition from pitied impotent mascot to superman skewed Ferdinand’s ability to react to the crisis all around him; though he could see society had collapsed and millions would soon be dead or dying from starvation, disease, and anarchy, for him personally things had never been better—he could fly for fuck's sake. As he carelessly raced and swooped and danced around through the air while rocking out to the soundtrack from Top Gun eventually the novelty of his new-found powers began to wear off. This is when he finally began to take note of his fellow man, though TA suits were few and far between in the area due to the blackout at the time of Suitfall Ferdinand still saw crimes and violence committed against innocents by other survivors. One night when Ferdinand was horsing around trying to catch a bat in flight (just because he could) he realized a woman below him was about to be raped. His immediate reaction was not one of horror, anger, or disgust he was elated; he could stop that man, he had that power. Suddenly to other people he could be more than pleasant company, he could be ''important, he could matter. In seconds Ferdinand had beaten the would-be rapist until he vomited. Though the man was well over six feet tall and in excelent shape he was no match at all for the inhuman progenitor speed and strength, or the the mastery of martial arts, Ferdinand now possesed; indeed Ferdinand very nearly killed the man in his excitement. The rapist stammered out apologies and oaths to never do it again and stumbled off into the night. When Ferdinand went to reassure the woman he realized her incredible emotional distress was nothing like the scene from Robocop he’d subconsciously been reenacting, felt awkward and left. After that policing the few people remaining in his small part of the world became his obsession, and though he did restore a kind of order punishing thieves and rapists and murderers, he was, psychologically, never really safeguarding the community. What he was really doing was playing Batman because he could and it was fun. He spent much of his time cloaked and spoke to people in ridiculous voices and finally learned some of what had plunged the country into anarchy, people in advanced suits of armor rampaging around in what seemed like indiscriminant slaughter. Even as he intellectually realized that his being in an armored suit, having elvish features, and possessing special powers would make him a target to many survivors he was psychologically unable to truly feel much concern so wrapped up was he is his newfound abilities; one day he found a bear going through garbage in an abandoned suburb, landed behind it, and punched it out. 'Post-Suitfall: Entering the War' His honeymoon came to an abrupt end shortly after his first encounter with a Tumbler Armor; he’d heard stories about the rampaging suits and he wasn’t stupid so when he spotted a Medium treaded suit rolling down an old highway firing on a small convoy of military and civilian vehicles he was cautious. He cloaked and hid behind a freeway piling before radioing the suit in an attempt to ascertain what was going on. No sooner had he done so than his non-sentient AI (who he’d long since begun speaking to as though it were) shrieked a warning and he rocketed to one side as a massive fucking laser beam blew apart the thick solid steel reinforced piling. Though the Medium lacked the sensors to pinpoint the now cloaked Ferdinand’s position he could guess and Ferdinand found himself narrowly avoiding a deadly fountain of hypervelocity projectiles from the TA’s metalstorm. Driven by the triple urges of rage, his still half-baked sense of superhero-dom, and finally feeling some sense of urgent purpose Ferdinand opened fire on the enemy suit with his railguns and, after a battle lasting more than half an hour, the most educational half hour of Ferdinand’s life, Ferdinand defeated the enemy suit killing its pilot and leaving little of his or her remains behind. As traumatic as this combat was Ferdinand’s eventual victory did more to convince him he was some sort of hero of Justice than give him a reality check; that is until he went to check on the caravan. The caravan had not fared well, one of Ferdinand’s first two shots at the Medium had gone wide and blown apart an overpass collapsing it onto the highway the caravan was using. Only the pair of humvees were able to off-road at all and they appeared to have elected to stay with their stranded companions. Unfortunately at some point Ferdinand or his scout drone must have swooped near the caravan because the Medium’s Wave Motion Gun had burned through most of the vehicles in a long slash that still glowed. As he approached the ruins of the convoy he realized one of the craters had been caused by him, he even remembered doing it. At one point a .50 caliber round from one of the humvees had smacked into him and he’d been so amped up that he’d returned fire on the hapless truck almost reflexively. Ferdinand allowed the railguns to retract onto his back and held his hands up placateingly as he called out to any survivors asking if anyone was hurt, explaining that he’d been trying to help. Eventually four armed survivors emerged. The four were wary but obviously willing to hear him out. That was when Ferdinand realized he knew one of the caravaners, it was an old friend of his fathers. After calling out to the old family friend and identifying himself the survivors relaxed greatly, smiles all around. The old friend told Ferdinand how good it was to hear a familiar voice and Ferdinand started to remove his armor so he could talk to the man face to face; the old family friend realized what Ferdinand was doing and, without hesitation, shot him. Asshole, Ferdinand’s AI, lacking its pilot's sentimentality immediately recognized the physiological indicators of impending violence and saw the rapidly rising weapon and even as the suit was being removed was able to fold Ferdinand’s legs sparing him a killing blow and began resealing Wing Jaeger around him. Even as the suit wrapped back around him Ferdinand realized the man he’d know since he was a child would blow his head open before his suit finished closing around him and so he rolled to one side, summoned one of his railguns into his hand with speed and coordination no human could hope to match and fired. Ferdinand missed the man but at such close range something with the immense power of Wing Jaeger's railgun didn’t need a direct hit; the old man’s body seemed to bend around the slug's path for a brief moment and then exploded from the hydrostatic pressure. With Wing Jaeger not yet fully sealed Ferdinand was not spared the powerful weapon’s overpressure either: his left eye blew out, both his eardrums ruptured, and every inch of his head was bruised more thoroughly than any heavyweight boxer who ever lived; had his mind been housed in its old wetware brain Ferdinand would have died instantly, as it was he merely lost consciousness and Asshole, noting this, finished sealing his suit, cloaked it and hid him somewhere. When the pilot woke he was hovering silently and invisibly directly over the scene of his betrayal. His head hurt so much he though for sure he was going to die and he saw what he knew must be the remains of his father’s jovial old friend smeared out across the median below him. Only then did Ferdidnand wake up to the horror that was the post-Suitfall world; it wasn’t fun anymore. Even as Ferdinand tried to recover from the massive emotional and physical trauma of the encounter things got even worse as several TA suits arrived in the area within hours presumably in response to the loss of the Medium. Any vague thoughts of heroism or resistance Ferdinand may have had disappeared instantly at the sight of the massive TA fortress spewing drones and suits from its hold in horrifying numbers. Wing Jaeger spent the next week skulking and fleeing as he couldn’t get far enough from the pursuing tumblerers to escape their radar envelope and had to rely on nape-of-the earth techniques the veteran soul of his cyberbrain imprinted on him. Finally Ferdinand escaped flying free and far for hours totally lost, delirious from pain and shock, alone, and without purpose in the world. Finally he stopped his aimless flight as Asshole informed him it had sighted bottles consistent with the markings Ferdinand had instructed it to search out. Ferdinand landed next to an ambulance that had rolled several times off of the road in a small Nevada town. Asshole reported the likely presence of humans at the other end of the town, but as they weren’t an immediate threat and his head hurt so incredibly bad Ferdinand ignored them in favor of the opiates that had spilled from the ambulance which he proceeded to gobble with reckless abandon; heavy duty pain meds are never something that should be gobbled. Not having bothered to read the labels Ferdinand woke in a drug addle fugue at least twelve hours latter while poor Asshole was doing all it could to alert him to a new threat, slowly Ferdinand focused on this new threat. Not thirty feet Directly in front of where he was invisibly sprawled out alongside the ambulance was another armor, Ferdinand realized the woman who wore it was half out of it as she bent down towards a smaller figure and handed it something. Only then did Ferdinand’s Adrenal Glands grasp the significance of what he was seeing and, swearing hysterically, he raised both railguns and opened fire on the demon before it could turn any of its beams, cannons, vibroblades, or missiles on him. As the strange armor disappeared in an explosion of dirt and debris Ferdinand realized that it had not been alone as Asshole shrieked and flashed his sensor displays to highlight four other armored figures and a dozen drones now reacting to the sudden attack as one. Screaming and roaring obscenities at the armored monsters, pleading for them to just leave him alone Ferdinand drug addled, suffering from several kinds of shock, and panicking fired wildly and maneuvered towards open sky; then there was a flash of white light and he lost consciousness. Ferdinand’s life was saved by two factors; the first was that Asshole, though “intelligent,” wasn’t sentient or terribly intuitive (yet). When Asshole heard its pilot screaming and pleading and deduced the remarks were aimed at the armored figures around them the AI helpfully broadcast the screaming and pleading over the radio. The second thing that saved Ferdinand’s life was the fact that the commander of the squadron of Armored Corps. pilots, the first benevolent pilots Ferdinand had ever encountered or even heard of, was quick witted enough to realize that TAs didn’t plead. They had obviously been attacked by some random 4channer pilot in need of medical attention who thought they were TA suits. She ordered her squad to bring the mesh down without killing him and they were able to do so with ease given their number, skills, and his sorry condition. When Ferdinand woke up his blown out eye and ears, his pulverized face were healed, he was told he’d been picked up by an organization known as the Armored Corps. which had been founded to fight against the monsters he’d encountered and that he’d unknowingly fired on some of their pilots. They assured him the AC held no rancor against him for his attack and, in fact, asked him to join their ranks. They reassured him that the same Hydra user who had healed his injuries had been able to reattach the legs of the pilot he’d first fired upon and that she was as good as ever. Eventually he wholeheartedly agreed to join them. They never mentioned what Ferdinand had pieced together for himself, his cyberbrain’s flawless memory this once become a curse: though the pilot who he’d fired on as she knelt down was well the little girl she’d been giving a candy bar to had been beyond Hydra’s ability to heal. 'Armor Corps. Service' Command, of course, ordered the details of Ferdinand’s “acquisition” kept secret, but by the time they did so rumors had already begun to spread through the Corps. Pilots heard various tales of what he had done and though many of them were clearly nonsense it nonetheless became common knowledge throughout the Corps. or at least the units he was a part of that he was guilty of some crime. Even those not given to gossip could easily tell something was not right with the young man, he frequently attended psych counseling he obviously hadn’t volunteered for, he avoided eye contact like the plague, he would actually use cloak to avoid social situations. His only friend seemed to be his AI Asshole who was widely assumed to have been uplifted; if one told most of those who met him that his AI hadn’t been uplifted they wouldn’t believe it, he talked to it too much and it was too proactive. Above all he never took his armor off, as he possessed Mycelium nanites it wasn’t strictly necessary for him to take it off nonetheless most pilots inevitably removed their suits for a variety of personal and practical reasons but not him; not ever. Even the sight of fellow AC pilots removing their armor seems to make him queasy. Even while he labored beneath this social stigma and struggled with a sense of self-loathing he became more driven than he had ever been before in his life. While he avoided socializing recreationally as though it were agonizing he spent hours every day pestering veteran pilots for tips, techniques, and knowledge whatever he could wring out of them, he trained his marksmanship whenever the range master would allow him, he reviewed sensor records and videos of every mission he could get clearance for. He poured over written materials on war, armaments, tactics, ballistics, aerospace mechanics. He forced himself to get to know pilots he worked alongside though both parties frequently found it unpleasant. In short he did anything and everything he could to make himself a better, more professional, pilot. Never again would Ferdinand allow innocent blood on his hands. He realized his father's friend had sought to kill him for the same reason he'd killed that little girl and blown a comrade's legs off: because of what the Vannai and their TA minions had done to the world and he bent his entire being to the purpose of freeing the world from that grip of desperation by being the greatest most effective soldier possible and dispatching the root cause. Ferdinand had no choice but to admit to himself that he still enjoyed the gifts Suitfall had given him, but now he did more than simply enjoy them he wielded them for an actual cause, to be the kind of defender of the weak and reaper of tyrants he had once merely played at in truth instead of merely in his mind.